You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That: GW2

Syl has an excellent post up about the various cosmetic options in GW2 and why they ought to be better than they are. Appearance and how it's handled in GW2 is just one of the many ArenaNet design decisions that mystify me. As I said in the comment thread over there I simply have to assume that ANet know something I don't, something which, if only I was privy to it, would makes sense of some of these seemingly nonsensical decisions.

The selection of items that dribble into the Gem Store seems both extremely limited and, in my opinion, poor. I'd been thinking that the choice of adolescent-oriented leisurewear probably reflected ANet's idea either of their de facto market or some demographic they desired to cultivate. Then I read the disturbing Penny Arcade piece linked by Feldon at EQ2Wire. That certainly put a different slant on things. Maybe we're not getting what they think we want but what they themselves would want in our place.

Cat hats. We want them.

  It's not just cosmetic and appearance items that puzzle me, though. Psychochild points out in the comment thread at MMOGypsy that Tyrian high level armor can be as hideous as any immersion-breaking hoodie. Partly that comes down to personal taste, of course, and it's hardly unusual for MMOs to feature garish, ridiculous or risible armor options at the top end, but I do struggle to find much that I would want to wear for looks once Exotics come into play.

I can't imagine the Fine Transmutation Stones were ever intended to transfer the look of a low-level item onto a high one but that tends to be what I use them for. Most of the really striking, unusual, attractive pieces I've seen are on Karma vendors, often low and mid level ones. Those are the pieces I wear for as long as I can and then stash in the bank to transmute onto whatever baroque embarrassment I end up using for the stats at 80.

Don't mind him. He's delusional.

Why do we have seven quality tiers for gear anyway? There's an MMO convention of putting completely useless, no-stat armor on vendors all across the world that I have never understood and it's a convention to which GW2 is fully signed up. Tyria is littered with Armorsmiths and Weaponsmiths offering complete sets that no-one will ever buy. That's pointless enough but then we come to Blue gear.

Blues are Magic Items like the watch you bought for £15 in the pub last night was a Rolex. For a few levels you have no choice but to wear Blue because that's all that's on offer but by the time you're in your teens Green appears and at 39th it all goes Yellow. You don't need to upgrade because you can happily solo to 80 wearing Blues (or naked for that matter), but that begs the question "if it doesn't matter what you wear, why have different grades at all?".


Given that no-one really gives even one hoot what they wear to level up in, gear only starts to matter at the cap. At that point Blues and Greens are widely referred to as "trash", fit only for vendoring or salvage. For a while you might wear Yellow Rare but everyone's goal is to get into a full set of Orange Exotic at the earliest possible opportunity. Only once all your slots are comfortably tangerine can you settle down and get on with the real business at hand - Legendary and Ascended.

I can't see any reason we couldn't just do away with White, Blue and Green gear altogether. Start with a minimum spec of Rare Yellow at level 1 (probably going to have to think of another name..). Maybe get Exotics dropping at 39 if that's supposed to be some special watershed. Up the coin and salvage drops from mobs to compensate for all those "magic Items" that we used to sell and scrap to earn a living and bobcat's your Charr uncle.

Oh I don't know. I only play these things. I'm sure there's some clever reason its done this way. Just like there's some clever reason not to release, or apparently even work on an expansion in the foreseeable future and some clever reason to give away regular, large-scale free content dumps for the rest of this year instead. I struggle to think of any explanation for the willful disinclination to take our money other than that the game is already exceeding whatever financial targets it was set and exceeding them handsomely.

The alternative is too disturbing to contemplate.